Sony's Welcome Back To PSN Program, Store Updates, and Political Issues

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Now that the PlayStation Network is up and churning along nicely for most of the world - Sony has announced its "Welcome Back" program. The program is designed to get back in the good graces of gamers who were without PSN for 3 weeks and who may have possibly had their personal information gleaned from Sony's servers.

North American gamers get their choice of two free games from a list of five. On the list you have: Infamous, Dead Nation, Super Stardust HD, Wipeout HD, and LittleBigPlanet. That's right - three of your free game choices have co-op gameplay. Beyond those games PlayStation Plus subscribers will get a free 60 days of service while everyone else gets 30 free days. There will also be free video rentals as well as free virtual items in PlayStation Home.

Free stuff is all well and good - but what about all the content that was missed in the previous weeks? Sony has announced that it will be updating the PlayStation Store (when it comes back online) more frequently than its normal every Tuesday until its caught up. You can expect PSN releases, demos and betas to be available then.

Finally - believe it or not - the PlayStation Network isn't up everywhere just yet. In fact, its still currently down in Sony's home country of Japan and its not for a lack of effort. The Japanese government has stepped in and aksed Sony to deliver proof that their network is more secure and customer information is better protected before allowing Sony to relaunch the service.

All PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

Dead Nation

inFAMOUS

LittleBigPlanet

Super Stardust HD

Wipeout HD + Fury

For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

LittleBigPlanet (PSP)

ModNation Racers

Pursuit Force

Killzone Liberation

A selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.

Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.

Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.

Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.

To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.